The nameplate says it’s the Waterman Collection. That would be Willard H. Waterman of Auburn, an avid birder of the early 20th century and a longtime director of the local Stanton Bird Club, which gave the collection to Bates many years ago.

The bird club is named for legendary Bates professor Johnny Stanton (1834–1918), a polymath who taught ornithology, among other topics, and had a tradition of taking students on regular outings and bird walks.

Stanton assembled his own prodigious collection of stuffed birds, and in the photograph below he poses with his birds in Carnegie Science Hall shortly before his 1918 death.

Jonathan Stanton poses with his bird collection in Carnegie Science Hall in this circa 1918 photograph. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Most of Stanton’s collection went from Bates to the Maine State Museum around 1980 but a few specimens stayed behind, and they share the Carnegie display case along with Waterman’s birds.

The style of the tag on this common bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula europoea, indicates that it was part of Stanton’s collection.

This preserved common bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula europoea, was part of Stanton’s collection. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Though preserved birds are used in Bates classrooms and research today, these older birds aren’t — arsenic was likely used to preserve them.

And while Stanton collected a lot of specimens from around the world (Bates publications of his era say he netted the kestrel in his collection while tramping about the ruins of the Parthenon), his collection never was particularly useful to later researchers. Besides the poison problem, the tags on his specimens all lack dates and locations.

The tag on this Atlantic puffin, Fratercula arctica, is of a different and, perhaps, better style, telling that the bird was taken on July 10, 1949, on Herring Island, famous for its puffins, off Labrador.

In his research, Dearborn and colleagues have used museum specimens to make a discovery about red-wing blackbird feather colors.

They found low levels of the hormone corticosterone in their feathers correlates with brighter red epaulets.

Since bright epaulets attract females, and since birds release corticosterone when they are stressed, it might follow that a stressed male with less-bright epaulets will have trouble finding a mate — which is sad for the male but, under Darwinian thinking, the way it goes.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2015/12/17/the-birds-carnegie-science-hall/feed/2Bates to host Maine Bird Conferencehttp://www.bates.edu/news/1998/04/15/bird-conference/
http://www.bates.edu/news/1998/04/15/bird-conference/#respondWed, 15 Apr 1998 18:51:23 +0000http://home.bates.edu/?p=23131The fourth biennial Maine Bird Conference, sponsored by Bates College and the Stanton Bird Club, will be held at Bates May 1-2 in the Olin Arts Center. Students, birdwatchers and ornithologists are invited to register for the conference by calling 207-645-4769 or 207-645-4122.

May 1 events:

The conference begins at 1:30 p.m. with a presentation by William Barnard of Norwich University on Radio Telemetry Studies of the Gray Jay in Vermont.

At 2:30 p.m., Bill Sheehan and Riche Hoppe of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will discuss, Design and Operation of the Maine M.A.P.S. Program.

At 3 p.m., Falk Heuttmann of the University of New Brunswick will discuss, Winter Transect off Grand Manan Island.

At 3:30 p.m., Sarah Bartos, a senior at Bates, will discuss, A Comparison of American Redstart Territory Size and Habitat Selection in Two Forest Types on Kent Island: Implications for the Conservation of the Species.

At 4 p.m., Andrew P. Weik of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Endangered and Threatened Species Group will discuss Conservation of Grassland Birds in Maine: Field Survey Results from 1997 and Plans for 1998.

At 4:30 p.m., Victoria Perry of the Cornish Elementary School will discuss, Birding with Children.

During the 6 to 7:30 p.m. dinner in Commons dining hall, Bonnie Bochan, field ornithologist and botanist and co- director of the Vermont and Maine Breeding Bird Atlas projects, will discuss, Birds of Jatun Sacha: Following the Breeding Birds of North America to the Tropics of Ecuador.

May 2 events:

At 6:30 a.m., The Stanton Bird Club will sponsor a campus bird walk. Participants will meet in front of the Olin Arts Center.

At 8:15 a.m., coffee and muffins will be served, and registration will be held in the Olin Arts Center lobby.

At 8:45 a.m., Thor Hanson of the University of Vermont will discuss, Foraging Behavior of Black-capped Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches and Golden-crowned Kinglets in Heterospecific and Conspecific Flocks.

At 9:15 a.m., Peter Vickery and W. Gregory Shriver of the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Center for Biological Conservation will discuss, A Regional Survey for Breeding Grassland Birds in the Northeastern United States.

At 9:45 a.m., Nat Wheelright and Jennifer J. Templeton of Bowdoin College will discuss, When Do Fledgling Sparrows Learn to Forage Independently?

At 10:30 a.m., David I. King of the University of Massachusetts will discuss, Avian Reproductive Success in Clearcuts and Groupcuts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

At 11 a.m., Kyle Apigian of Bowdoin College will discuss Foraging Efficiency and Preference in Black-capped Chickadees.

At 11:30 a.m., Randall B. Boone and W.B. Krohn of the University of Maine, Orono, will discuss, Evidence of Transition Zones in Bird Distributions.

From noon to 12:45 p.m. lunch will be served in Chase Hall.

12:45 to 1:30 p.m. Panel discussion on Bird Conservation programs in Maine: Alternative Funding Sources at Work will be held.

At 1:30 p.m., Thomas Hodgmann of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Bird Group will discuss, Partners in Flight Program: Opportunities for Monitoring Bicknell’s Thrush and Other Mountaintop Forest Birds.

At 2 p.m., Herb Wilson of Colby College will discuss, The Effect of Supplemental Feeding on Wintering Black-capped Chickadees.

At 2:30 p.m. Mitschka Hartley of the University of Maine, Orono, will discuss, Effects of Selective Silviculture on Breeding Songbirds.

At 3 p.m., Taryn L. Kruger of Bowdoin College will discuss, Nest Box Choice and Site Fidelity in Tree Swallows.

At 3:30 p.m. Judy Kellogg Markowsky and William Halteman of the Maine Audubon Society and the University of Maine, Orono, will discuss, Roadkilled Birds, Foraging Substrate, Season and Road Type.

At 4 p.m., David Evers and Peter Reaman of the Biodiversity Research Institute will discuss, Mercury Exposure in Maine Fish-eating Birds.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/1998/04/15/bird-conference/feed/0Maine Bird Conference to be held at Bateshttp://www.bates.edu/news/1996/04/22/maine-bird-conference/
http://www.bates.edu/news/1996/04/22/maine-bird-conference/#respondMon, 22 Apr 1996 15:30:46 +0000http://home.bates.edu/?p=21683Amateur and professional ornithologists from around the state will gather Friday and Saturday, April 26 and 27, at Bates for the annual Maine Bird Conference sponsored by the college and the Stanton Bird Club.

The conference will cover several ornithological topics, including endangered bird species; the effects of different forestry practices on bird habitat; and bird behavior. Speakers include Ed Mair, chairperson of the American Birders’ Exchange, who will discuss Birdwatching in Cyberspace, and Peter Stangel of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, who will speak on the Voyage of the Wood Thrush: Winging Our Way to a New Century of Bird Conservation.

Further information on the conference is available from David Haines, professor of mathematics, at 207-786-6144.